Live data from Hacker News

Do You Love Me? [video]

youtube.com

181–190 of 478 posts

Re: Do You Love Me? [video]

#181

I am a huge fan of spartan-like no-bullshit brutalist approach towards their marketing/PR: - No studio setup, just their lab - No artificial lighting - No fucks given about hiding the mess - Robots going through surgery in the background - Song is classy af IMO - Can see the camera man - Can see the engineers/employees - Framing/cinematography isn't as polished (this is a feature, not a bug) - Chipped paint, beaten u…

> I hope it takes over the top spot on Youtube.

It won't because for non-techies it's just a random video without any significance. I tried showing it to my girlfriend twice and she was extremely unimpressed and uninterested.

Re: Do You Love Me? [video]

#182

I am a huge fan of spartan-like no-bullshit brutalist approach towards their marketing/PR: - No studio setup, just their lab - No artificial lighting - No fucks given about hiding the mess - Robots going through surgery in the background - Song is classy af IMO - Can see the camera man - Can see the engineers/employees - Framing/cinematography isn't as polished (this is a feature, not a bug) - Chipped paint, beaten u…

All of this is trivially explained by the fact that they are not a consumer oriented company so they don’t have to sell hype. Their customers aren’t average people chasing trends and reading Twitter. Nearly every b2b business markets in a similar way. When you’re competing in a vicious field for consumer mindshare it leads to the marketing and self aggrandizing because you’re literally trying to capture the attention…

100%. Metrics/data driven marketing for the masses leads to a lot of unspartan marketing. I can think of few brutalist marketing/branding - Berkshire Hathaway (https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/) is one, although their product is abstract - financial services. Any others you can cite?

Edit: MIT branding is pretty cool too: https://web.mit.edu/ and always have been, although this is B2C.

Re: Do You Love Me? [video]

#183

Jesus y'all are so cynical, commenting on how these are war bots and gonna automate everything away, I just think it's an engineering marvel that these insanely complex robotic maneuvers can be done so fluidly now

Yea, it's very impressive engineering. However there is no intelligence in these machines. It's a clever combination of hard- and software. Takes human intelligence to build it.

Bottom line. Machines. Not Intelligent.

Re: Do You Love Me? [video]

#184
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bipedal robots will replace human labour and the first person to make them inexpensive will become unfathomably wealthy. How much did slack go for? 30 billion? For a shiny chat client with fewer features than the 25 year old tech they ape.

> Bipedal robots will replace human labour and the first person to make them inexpensive will become unfathomably wealthy. Yeah, until there's a B1-66ER incident...

Animatrix: Second Renaissance. Sick reference bro.

Re: Do You Love Me? [video]

#185

Jesus y'all are so cynical, commenting on how these are war bots and gonna automate everything away, I just think it's an engineering marvel that these insanely complex robotic maneuvers can be done so fluidly now

Automating everything away isn't cynicism. It's what some of us want.

Re: Do You Love Me? [video]

#186
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The velociraptor on wheels is a good name. I shudder to think what war variant machines will resort to when they are running low on ammo. Do robots need to follow the Geneva convention?

Just look at the history of landmines. 164 countries have voted to ban them, 33 have not. surprisingly (or not), at least one of these countries professes to be horrified when low-tech versions of the same technology are deployed against it and considers that to be appalling moral cowardice.

The "number of countries" is a misleading metric for landmine treaty - as it includes all the many countries who expect no wars at all and so they're not actually giving up anything. The 33 include almost all countries who actually expect to fight any wars and/or have serious militaries. Okay, UK, France and Turkey have banned landmines, but USA, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and Iran haven't banned them, and those 7 matter far more than the 164 signatories of the Ottawa convention for actual banning of landmines in practical use.

And of course, the roadside IEDs that USA saw in Iraq and Afghanistan would still be legal under the Ottawa convention (it does not ban anti-vehicle mines and remotely detonated devices) so you can't really assert that USA is complaining about something they won't ratify themselves.

If we look at the history of landmines, then it's fairly certain that countries are not going to give up a capability that they expect to use, all the universally accepted treaties only ban things that we consider impractical, which do not give a serious advantage (e.g. chemical weapons, which aren't competitive with conventional weapons if you're fighting against a proper military and not just gassing civilians and/or guerillas).

So combat robots will be banned only if (and while) they turn out to be useless and impractical compared to alternatives, or perhaps selectively banned by the countries who weren't going to use them anyway because they can't afford them. If they are actually good for their role, then they will be legal for all the major militaries.

Re: Do You Love Me? [video]

#187
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a joke now but there is going to be a sizable amount of property damage to these things once this shift occurs.

Only if we can't shift society to accomodate the changing job market and take care of people who have been made obsolete. Ideally by enjoying the fruits of our collective labor and ditching the "everyone must spend more than half their lives working" obsession. Call your senator before it's your head on the guillotine, rich HN readers.

Actually, that's not how it works. Consumer inflation is the go to mechanism for keeping unemployment low. It will keep working even with automation. The government merely has to enact effective policies that keep consumer inflation on track.

There is no meaningful distinction between robots and foreign labor when it comes to low employment rates. Both are "not Americans" if your definition of Americans only includes humans that are citizens of the US. Any inequality that would be caused by robots already exists in the form of inequality caused by globalization.

You can solve inequality quite easily with the right policies. Change tax policy for the wealthy or create demand for labor through economic stimulus.

Re: Do You Love Me? [video]

#189

I am a huge fan of spartan-like no-bullshit brutalist approach towards their marketing/PR: - No studio setup, just their lab - No artificial lighting - No fucks given about hiding the mess - Robots going through surgery in the background - Song is classy af IMO - Can see the camera man - Can see the engineers/employees - Framing/cinematography isn't as polished (this is a feature, not a bug) - Chipped paint, beaten u…

It’s all very cool looking.

However when I watched this video my first thought was “my god they’re going to bring the drone wars to the ground.” I am a robotics engineer and have been focused on robotics my whole life. I worked at Google X on a robotics team with some great ex-Boston Dynamics people, and some of my friends have since gone to work for them.

So I do understand what they have achieved. It’s fantastic from a technological perspective. And I know they have non military funders now. There’s a great many labor applications for machines like this if they can sell them for under half a million dollars and get them to do real work. I understand all that.

But I fear that if the US military orders some, the company would happily oblige. Maybe they’ve committed to only peaceful non military use. But these extremely agile and capable machines to me seem like some military strategists dream come true. So when I watch all of this achievement from a company that for so long survived off of military funding, I am deeply saddened by the implications.

Delivery robots and warehouse workers would be great. But these seem like in ten or 20 years time they’ll be another extension of the US global killing machine. I dream of a world where we can use robotics to make the world better, and the potential military use here leaves me uneasy. I cannot celebrate what I fear will be the dawn of ever more inhuman military conflict.

Re: Do You Love Me? [video]

#190

I am a huge fan of spartan-like no-bullshit brutalist approach towards their marketing/PR: - No studio setup, just their lab - No artificial lighting - No fucks given about hiding the mess - Robots going through surgery in the background - Song is classy af IMO - Can see the camera man - Can see the engineers/employees - Framing/cinematography isn't as polished (this is a feature, not a bug) - Chipped paint, beaten u…

All of this is trivially explained by the fact that they are not a consumer oriented company so they don’t have to sell hype. Their customers aren’t average people chasing trends and reading Twitter. Nearly every b2b business markets in a similar way. When you’re competing in a vicious field for consumer mindshare it leads to the marketing and self aggrandizing because you’re literally trying to capture the attention…

And maybe even more because they didn't even have customers at all until recently. In fact nobody wanted to even buy their business. Who's laughing now? (probably the robots)
Post reply on HN